Bookstore owner "Moe' Moskowitz

Published 7:00 am, Wednesday, April 2, 1997

Morris "Moe" Moskowitz, co-owner of the venerable Moe's Books on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, died of cardiac arrest at his home Tuesday morning. He was 75.

"He was an institution in Berkeley," said Martin Schwartz, UC-Berkeley professor of Near Eastern studies and longtime friend and customer of Moe - as he was known to all who patronized his store.

"He had his idiosyncrasies," Schwartz said. "But I always found him delightful and refreshing."

Recalled as a comedian, a demon shelver of books, an ace pool player and a man of strong political beliefs, Moe was memorialized by employees Tuesday, who put his photo in the window and kept the store open in his honor.

"People are very moved because it is a unique place that provides a lot of intellectual sustenance and recreation," said Laura Tibbals, a 17-year employee at Moe's. "It's a big loss, and we're still reeling."

Moe's Books opened in 1962 as UC-Berkeley and Telegraph Avenue were becoming a center of youthful rebellion and political activism. Although Cody's Books up the block was the site of more political meetings, Moe's was also a place for a good argument.

"Moe was very political; he'd argue with the kids up and down," said his ex-wife, Barbara Moskowitz. "He was a born anarchist, really."

When police threw tear gas canisters into Cody's, people ran to Moe's for refuge.

"We had a back door, and we let people escape," she said.

"It was very exciting."

Born to an Austrian father and Yugoslavian mother, Moe grew up in Queens, N.Y. He worked for art galleries, studied violin and was a member of the Living Theater acting group in New York. He came to San Francisco in the late 1950s.

Moe and Barbara Moskowitz opened their first bookstore on Shattuck Avenue in 1959. It sold used paperbacks, which were known as pocket books in those days and were still relatively new in the book industry.

After a few years, they and other partners briefly had another bookstore called Rambam at the site of the present Shakespeare & Co. Books on Telegraph. The Moskowitzes then opened Moe's Books across the street in 1962.

Moe's philosophy of used-book pricing developed from his days shopping in New York.

"He resented the fact that he'd sell a used book to a bookstore, get a nickel, and they'd turn around and sell it for a quarter," Barbara Moskowitz said. "That was the whole idea for pricing things fairly. We don't more than double the money. It has made a difference in local bookstores."

Despite rumors of a nasty rivalry with Cody's, she said the relationship between the two stores was more like

"hand and glove."

"You couldn't have one without the other," she said.

"Cody's was the source of books we bought to resell."

The couple had two daughters before divorcing in 1981 after 20 years of marriage. She is still part owner of Moe's Books.

Although he stopped smoking five years ago under doctor's orders, Moe was remembered by friends and employees as the man with a cigar stuck to his mouth, continuing to smoke indoors even after Berkeley enacted a law banning it.

"He thought it was absurd he couldn't smoke in his own store," Tibbals said.

He once unsuccessfully petitioned the city to allow him to light up in his store, saying his cigar was an essential part of his image.

John Wong, manager of the store's rare books section, recalled that Moe's cigar ashes carelessly tossed into garbage cans were the frequent cause of small fires. The smoke caused alarms to sound, doors to slam shut and general panic to ensue, but Moe would stand calmly, oblivious to it all.

"He was a stand-up comic," Wong said. "He played it for all it was worth."

Wong says that Moe kept only one book at his house:

"Memoirs of a Bankrupt Bookseller."

His passion at home was not pocket books but pocket billiards. But years of book-shelving ruined his elbow so that he could play neither pool nor violin.

"He used to shelve furiously," Wong said. "He'd shelve pocket books into place for hours."

He is survived by his wife, Renee Lieberman; two daughters, Doris Moskowitz and Katy Gordon; and his 3-month-old grandson, Elijah Williams.